Toil & Trouble
by Regency
Summary: Set post-BJB. At the end of Halloween night, the Jones-Darcys are in a quandary. William needs a bath, Mark needs a hand, and Bridget needs the men in her life to get it together.


Author: Regency

Title: Toil & Trouble

Pairing: Mark Darcy/Bridget Jones

Rating: G/Everyone

Warnings: None.

Summary: Set post-BJB. At the end of Halloween night, the Jones-Darcys are in a quandary. William needs a bath, Mark needs a hand, and Bridget needs the men in her life to get it together.

Prompt: quick halloween fluff based on the illustration of mark as darth vader

Author's Notes: Come flail with me on Tumblr at sententiousandbellicose!

Disclaimer: I do not own any characters, settings, or plot elements recognizable as being from any incarnation of Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding. They are the property of their actors, producers, writers, and studios, not me. No copyright infringement was intended and no money was made in the writing or distribution of this story. It was good, clean fun.

* * *

Mark and Bridget regarded their toddler son with matching expressions of consternation.

"How did he get covered in marshmallow without anybody noticing?" Mark's voice echoed from inside his Darth Vader mask. He'd been discreetly trying to work his way out of it since they arrived home without success. Bridget hadn't caught on as yet and he'd rather she didn't. He wouldn't be living it down anytime soon once she did.

William had managed to smear chocolate on his mouth and marshmallow creme everyplace else on his body, including behind his ears. Mark had to acknowledge Bridget had a point about dressing him as Luke Skywalker: much easier cleanup. _Probably._ Were he honest, probably not. Nothing with their son was ever quite as easy all that.

William gabbled excitably in a toddler-esque conlang of English and wordless nonsense neither could reliably decipher but both considered much too dear. Their son had them thoroughly wrapped around his tiny finger.

Bridget unpinned her Leia-approved hairstyle and shook it out. _At least she got out of her helmet without incident._ "I'm pretty sure Tom noticed. He was the one to give him the marshmallow peeps."

"He didn't! I'll throttle him." But Bridget was giggling too joyfully for Mark to believe she'd let him go through with it. Bridget's motley Urban Family added to the color of their lives despite many of them residing farther away than they had in the past. However either of them might complain about Sharon's penchant for expletives cropping up in William's limited vocabulary, it certainly made play dates entertaining. _And holiday gatherings and business dinners. Toddlers dropping f-bombs and pudding._ Not the family life Mark had envisioned, yet all the lovelier for the surprise it had turned out to to be.

"Simmer down, Vader. The Empire will still be there to conquer later." She pecked his ridiculous mask at approximately cheek level, then gave it a tug that accomplished nothing in freeing him. "You can take that off, you know? I mean, unless you're a terribly disfigured former Jedi Knight under there."

"Don't spoil the plot twist, darling."

She snorted. "Don't pretend you've watched any but the latest of those films. You were probably studying for one thing or another when they first came out."

Mark would have scratched his whiskered chin if he could have reached it under this bloody stifling helmet.

His lack of response was as revealing as any prevarication would have been.

"You didn't." Her bright blue eyes widened in stunned amusement.

He shuffled his feet, glad at least that he had this mask to cover his flushing cheeks.

"Yes, well. Even brainiacs need a night off. It so happens that my nights off coincided with the release of those infernal films." He clasped his hands behind his back. He had to lean down to actually see his wife as this mask limited his vision and she was flatfooted in her stormtrooper ensemble. He'd never had a stormtrooper titter at his expense before. _Nor have I ever seen one so beautiful._

"Mark Darcy, you _are_ a geek!"

"My younger brother wanted to see them, so."

"Of course. Certainly. We'll blame poor Peter when he isn't here to defend himself."

"He'd be my willing scapegoat in this regard. He was the only person I felt comfortable confiding in about all that."

"That's so sweet." She squeezed his hands in her. He could just feel her warmth radiating through his padded gloves. She drew his hands to her lips to kiss the backs of them, smudging lip stain across the black knit. "I like that, knowing you had things to make you happy before I knew you. Like, _really_ knew you."

He tilted his head in question.

"You've always seemed so serious in the younger pictures I used to see of you. Sweet as anything but _serious_ to a fault. I like knowing you must have had things that made you all ecstatic and laugh and _geek_ out like a little boy even when you'd become a young man." She shrugged, pursing her lips. "I suppose the thought of you being happy makes me happy."

He wished he could kiss her. "Then you must be happy on my behalf all the time."

"I really am." She peered up at him, fondness and love and pure affection lighting her face. She didn't have to say the words for him to know them.

She encircled him in her arms. Their respective costumes made for a difficult embrace, one rife with breathy laughter as their respective breastplates clacked together and shin guards of their armor became irrevocably interlocked. _I can imagine worse people to be stuck to for the rest of the night._

"This is a safety hazard if I've ever seen one," he groused in total sincerity. He was sick of being Vader. He wanted to be Mark again, Mark with Bridget in his arms as she should be. "Next year, I'll go as Anakin or I'll go as nothing."

Bridget writhed against him in a way that was not at all helpful to his concentration. Since stormtroopers were hardly Mark's type, he was forced to conclude it was the woman inside the suit of armor that raised his spirits, so to speak. The devious gleam in her eyes made it very clear she knew it just as well.

"Not even dishy Obi-Wan?"

He cocked an incredulous eyebrow, not that she could see it. "Since when can you name more than two characters from Star Wars?"

"Constance and Harry got obsessed and guess who got the thankless task of sitting with them through interminable re-watches."

"Auntie Bee?"

"Ugh, you know it. I could quote the bloody prequels in my sleep."

"My sympathies."

"They weren't _that_ awful."

"Darling, those words are grounds for divorce in some circles. Shh." He would have kissed her had his costume permitted. Alas he had to content himself with giving her an affectionate squeeze.

William took this opportunity to remind his parents that he was still in the room and still doing his best to consume more than his fair share of Borough Market's Halloween candy.

"I'll get him into the bath if you lay out his pajamas."

"Deal."

Bridget squirmed out of her shin guard and chest plate, dropping them to the bed, and sequestered their son from his candy haul at once. Mark had the worst feeling they were going to be cleaning up candy-colored sick before the morning dawned.

"That's enough of that, William Jones-Darcy. Time for your b-a-t-h."

William squinted as Bridget did when she hadn't quite got the whole of an idea and then he began to throw a pint-sized tantrum in his mother's arm. _Shit. He hasn't figured out what that spells, surely._ He was only two, after all.

His wife shot him an accusatory look, as though it was Mark's intellect and not Bridget's insistence on reading William every book in their shared library that had put him ahead of the curve this way. He'd be hearing about this from the next gathering of the Smug Mothers' Circle, he could be sure of it.

Mark retrieved William's favorite Millenium Falcon footie pajamas from the nursery and laid them out at the end of the bed. He managed to maneuver his suited arms high enough to unlatch the helmet. It was a relief to finally scratch that itch on his chin.

He was catching up on emails from work when Bridget returned, smiling as if she had an adorable secret, despite being quite obviously soaked down one leg and up both sleeves. "He's refusing to go in till he faces his nemesis."

"What in the blazes? Who's his nemesis?"

Bridget looked down at the Vader getup Mark hadn't yet had the chance to throw aside. _At least I've escaped that blasted mask._

"You're kidding."

"You know what Tom said. He's not quite got the hang of fiction yet. He thinks you're Darth Vader and as Luke Skywalker, it's his responsibility to vanquish you. So go on," she pointed him toward the bathroom, "get vanquished."

Mark crossed his arms. "You can't be serious."

"I very much am. Bathtub's drained. Floor's a mess. Baby is very determined to have this out."

Bridget took up his abandoned light saber from the bureau. It whizzed to red fluorescent, hazy life at the push of a button. She swung it about as one would a long sword. Mark had to admit it was a little sexy seeing Bridget take on unseen foes while half-dressed as a stormtrooper.

Right up until she tripped over her night clothes leftover from this morning's hasty departure and landed on her rump and back on her hands, winded.

"Shit. Probably best to limit the action sequences to a couple of minutes. If he's got anything like my coordination, this could go land us all in A&E."

Mark crossed their bedroom to help her off the floor and dust her off. She didn't even blush at her habitual klutziness and he let her accident speak for itself. He was relieved enough to see she wasn't hurt to let the admonishment not to play light sabers in the house go unspoken. Once assured she was all intact, he kissed her quickly and relieved her of his chosen weapon.

"Get out of that before you sprain something. I've an appointment with a Jedi, but I'll be returning to collect my prize later."

She saluted him. "Hurry back and I'll even rescue you from that costume before you have to sleep in it." She smirked at his gobsmacked expression.

"Ah," he replied, rather eloquently, he thought.

"Uh huh. I'll get the screwdriver."

"It's just the zipper." One Mark couldn't actually reach festooned as he was in yards of leatherette and polyester, not to mention the ostentatious cape, but surely not a mechanism necessitating the Jaws of Life to unlatch.

"Sure it is. Off you go."

She kissed his bristled chin, drawing a small smile from him as she always could.

"Ah, don't forget your mask." She held up the blasted contraption for his retrieval and winked. "May the Force be with you."

With the tiny whirlwind that was their son awaiting him on the field of bath time, Mark had a feeling he was going to need it.


End file.
